Here's another example of a TV character appearing in an interstitial for
ME-TV:

Norm Peterson was already qualified for inclusion in the TV Crossover Hall
of Fame with appearances in 'Frasier', 'Wings', and 'Cheers' of course. Plus
there was a side excursion into the Tooniverse thanks to 'The Simpsons'. So
this is just icing on the cake!

Usually when the Toobworld Dynamic "absorbs" a movie out of the Cineverse
(the movie universe name coined by Craig Shaw Gardner), there's already some
kind of connection to the TV Universe - like the appearance of a TV character,
for example. The original 'Star Trek' franchise, "Maverick", the 1966 "Batman"
movie.... But not "The Beverly Hillbillies" - even though Buddy Ebsen does
appear as 'Barnaby Jones', the rest of the characters are recastaways. So that
Barnaby Jones is the movie counterpart to the televersion.

I've often wanted to grab a movie - kidnap it, actually - and claim it for
the Toobworld Dynamic. "John Carter" is a good example of that - I had a bit of
a meltdown over the idea. (If you're so interested in seeing me go bat-bleep,
look for it yourself. I'm not going to help you!)

But there is a movie with no real connection to TV for which I will defend
my "kidnapping" - "The Velvet Touch", a murder mystery starring Rosalind
Russell, Leo Genn, Claire Trevor, Leon Ames, Dan Tobin, and Sydney Greenstreet.
The format of the movie is highly reminiscent of a 'Columbo' episode in which we
see the murder committed and it's about twenty minutes before the detective
shows up. After that, it's not whodunnit but how is he going to solve it.

The movie even features an appearance by Mike Lally, who appeared more
often in 'Columbo' than any other actor, and it has the line "Just one more
thing" (although not spoken by the detective.)

It's because of Sydney Greenstreet as Captain Danbury of the NYPD that I
want to claim this movie for Toobworld. His style of interrogation suggests
that of Lt. Columbo who would come along twenty years later. Since it's been
established that Columbo began his career in New York City before moving to Los
Angeles, I'm going to suggest that Captain Danbury was an indirect influence on
the future detective.

Columbo has claimed that it was a New York cop named Sgt. Gilhooley who
taught him everything he knows as a detective. Well, I think among those
detectives we see in the squad room is Sgt. Gilhooley, and that he learned
everything he knew from the master, Captain Danbury.

If you can find a copy of this film, watch it. Every so often it shows up
on TCM, so set up a schedule for yourself at their website to give you an alert
when it's coming around again.

In the meantime, here's a scene from the movie in which Captain Danbury
acts somewhat "Columbo-ish".......

From Squidoo.com:Ray Collins' Lt. Arthur Tragg was Perry Mason's big
nemesis along with Hamilton Burger. He played a hard nosed police lieutenant who
often butt heads with Perry and often suffered frustration at the hands of the
lawyer and Paul Drake.

From Wikipedia:Ray Collins played the part of the
crusty, dedicated police lieutenant, Arthur Tragg, who often frustrated Mason.
Collins' appearances diminished toward the end of the 1963–64 season (he was 67
when the series began and died in the summer of 1965), and he was assisted by
Wesley Lau as Lt. Andy Anderson, who took the position by himself until the end
of the 1964–65 season.

Ray Bidwell Collins (December 10, 1889 – July 11,
1965) was an American actor in film, stage, radio, and television. One of
Collins' best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running
series 'Perry Mason'.

He may be best remembered for his work on television,
playing Lieutenant Tragg on 'Perry Mason' in the 1950s and 1960s.

By 1960,
while immersed in the 'Perry Mason' series, Collins found his physical health
declining and his memory waning, problems which in the next few years brought an
end to his career. On the difficulty he was beginning to encounter in
remembering his lines, he commented, "Years ago, when I was on the Broadway
stage, I could memorize 80 pages in eight hours. I had a photographic memory.
When I got out on the stage, I could actually -- in my mind -- see the lines
written on top of the page, the middle or the bottom. But then radio came along,
and we read most of our lines, and I got out of the habit of memorizing. I lost
my natural gift. Today it's hard for me. My wife works as hard as I do, cueing
me at home."

On July 11, 1965, Collins died of emphysema at the age of
75.

O'BSERVATION:

Ray Collins made his final appearance in a 'Perry Mason' episode at the end of Season 8 in "The Case Of The Mischievous Doll" (May, 1965). I'd like to think that Arthur Tragg retired from the force in June of that year and - even though Collins was dead by July of that year - enjoyed another five years in retirement before he passed away in 1970.......

Friday, October 19, 2012

The Higher Education Act of 1965 and the Pell Grants which began in 1972
(but under a different name) would not have been of much help to a young man in
the 1950's struggling to get through college and then on to law school.

A young man named Sampson was faced with such a dilemma, and I believe he
put himself through school by driving a truck. And being the handsome, virile
specimen that he was, he bedded a lot of women - some of them married, not that
it mattered - along his routes. One of these women was Irene Rankin, wife of a
professor living in a small town.

Once he graduated law school, Sampson got himself a job as an assistant
district attorney for the city of Los Angeles, California. He was abrasively
zealous in his pursuit of convictions, most notably in the murder cases listed
above.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the leopard changed his spots.
From these three cases, we know nothing of ADA Sampson's private life. So it's
pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that he continued with his womanizing ways.

This is only supposition, based on the fact that H.M. Wynant played both
roles in Toobworld. And thanks to my blogging buddy Ivan of "The Thrilling Days
Of Yesteryear" (Link to the Left, My Students Of The Macabre!), this "By Any Other Name" post
was made better by the screen captchas from 'Perry Mason'.

There was a TV series based on "Black Beauty" in 1972. But although it was
set in the original England, it had less to do with the novel than did the
Americanized mini-series.....

From Wikipedia:

'The Adventures of Black Beauty' is a British children's television drama
series produced by London Weekend Television and shown by ITV in the United
Kingdom between 1972 and 1974. It was distributed internationally by London
Weekend International.

The series was not an adaptation of the book by Anna
Sewell, but a "continuation" featuring new characters created by Ted Willis,
most prominently Dr James Gordon, played by William Lucas, and his children
Vicky, played by Judi Bowker (who became Jenny, played by Stacy Dorning, in the
second series) and Kevin, played by Roderick Shaw. Other writers included David
Butler and Richard Carpenter, while directors included Charles Crichton and
Peter Duffell.

The series, which was filmed mainly at Stockers Farm,
Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, was widely acclaimed for its high production
values and quality of writing and acting, and at times had remarkable English
gothic overtones for a children's series.

O'BSERVATIONS:

There is a Black Beauty in Toobworld who is based on the horse in the original novel,
even though the setting was changed to America. This version can remain in Earth Prime-Time, however, because in the end, it's just a name given to a horse. The plotline was completely changed.

As for the "recastaways" of
Vicky and Jenny, both were Dr. Gordon's daughters. But he could only afford to
send one off to finishing school at a time, so when Jenny came home, Vicky left
for her schooling.

"Black Beauty" is an 1877 novel by English author
Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she
remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller,
with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her
first and only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, "Black
Beauty" is one of the best-selling books of all time. While forthrightly
teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness,
sympathy, and respect. "Black Beauty" became a forerunner to the pony book genre
of children's literature.

The story is narrated in the first person as an
autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty—beginning
with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his
difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country.
Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty
and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life
containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and
understanding treatment of horses, with Sewell's detailed observations and
extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of
verisimilitude.

Darkie/Black Beauty/Black Auster/Jack/Blackie/Old Crony—The narrator of the
story, a handsome black horse. He begins his career as a carriage horse for
wealthy people but when he "breaks his knees" (i.e. develops scars on his knees
after a bad fall) he is no longer considered presentable enough and is put to
much harder work. He passes through the hands of a series of owners, some cruel,
some kind. He always tries his best to serve humans despite the
circumstance.

From the Turner Classic Movies website:

['Black Beauty' is a] sentimental, all-star retelling (the ninth and most lavish filming since
1906) of Anna Sewell's beloved animal classic, stretched out in its premiere
showing over five nights in hourly episodes. Subsequently shown in two parts
over four hours.

O'BSERVATIONS:

Although the story was "Americanized", it still covered many of the same situations as were in the novel. I am not sure if there was any voice-over by Black Beauty. If so, we could make the assertion that he was a Houyhnhnm as seen in the mini-series 'Gulliver's Travels' (based on the novel by Jonathan Swift.)

The full mini-series is available on DVD.Every so often I dedicate the ASOTV showcase to someone. Today's feature is dedicated to Cindy Weich, a horse-lover who also lived in T-House when I was at UConn......

Thursday, October 18, 2012

If you've been paying attention the last two weeks, you know that I'm
caught up in the reruns bonanza (including 'Bonanza'!) that is ME-TV (as well as
Antenna TV and to a lesser extent, TV Land.) Besides having old favorites like
'Perry Mason', 'Rockford Files', 'The Dick Van Dyke Show', 'The Mary Tyler Moore
Show' and 'Columbo', ME-TV has great promos for itself. (I tip my cap to their
research staff for finding the appropriate clips.)

There's one particular interstitial that gets lots of play which features
Alan Brady touting 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'.

Not Carl Reiner. Alan Brady.

After all the time I spent this past year writing about 'The Dick Van Dyke
Show', hopefully you'll remember that mentions of that classic sitcom in other
TV shows are not a Zonk.

THE SPLAININ:

Alan Brady bought the rights to Rob Petrie's memoirs with the intent of
adapting it as a sitcom for himself. The original pilot "Head Of The Family" is
the result, and the only episode filmed. As it also played out in real life
with Carl Reiner, the network was cool to the idea of Brady in the role of Rob
Petrie. Hoping to salvage the project, Brady hired a young actor named Dick Van
Dyke because he bore an uncanny resemblance to Brady's former head writer. And
so it's the show within the show that everybody mentions.

Got that?

So that's what Alan Brady is talking about - his own
production of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show', not Carl Reiner's.

But that's not what is interesting about that promo.....

According to the notes connected with that YouTube video, it first aired in
October of 2007. About four years earlier, CBS broadcast 'The Dick Van Dyke
Show Revisited', a reunion special that reconnected the Trueniverse audience
with Rob, Laura, Sally (and Herman), Alan, Millie, Rob's brother Stacey, and
blink-and-you'll-miss-him Ritchie. But it was mentioned in the course of the
show that Buddy, Mel, and Jerry had all passed away.

And yet in this 2007 promo, Mel is apparently still alive?

We hear a snippet of his dialogue from some episode and we see an
outstretched arm. (Because of the death of Richard Deacon in the real world
back in 1984, that was O'Bviously a recastaway.)

Alan looks at the off-camera Mel and asks, "What's the matter with
you?"

Maybe he's a zombie?

No, even I'm not going there.

THE SPLAININ:

Alan Brady got himself a new flunky named Mel.

The only sticking point would be the use of Richard Deacon's voice,
but haven't there been times in your own life when you heard somebody and
thought it was someone else? That's what we're claiming in this case.

So who is this new Mel?

Alan Brady is a very demanding boss and as such would only want someone
with experience in the TV biz to be his right-hand man.

So I have a candidate. I nominate Mel Price.

For three episodes of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', David Ogden Stiers
appeared as the new station manager for WJM.

He played hardball with Mary and Lou in their contract
renegotiations.

He hired critic Karl Heller to do an acidic arts segment on the Six O'Clock
News.

He fostered 'The Ted And Georgette Show'.

And although not seen in the episode, Mel Price was probably responsible
for getting Sue Ann's show 'The Happy Homemaker' canceled.

In the intervening decades, Mel Price probably had many other career
opportunities in television. (For the suits behind the scenes, it must be a
volatile job market.)

But by 2007, Mel Price could have been the Veep in Alan Brady's production
company (which doesn't mean he's still working there now!)

Buddy would have loved to loathe him - the right-hand man for Alan Brady who's tall, bald, AND named Mel?

'The Jewel In The Crown' was the umbrella title for this adaptation of Paul
Scott's four novels in the "Raj Quartet". Barbie Batchelor's story comes mostly
from "The Towers Of Silence".

From Wikipedia:

"The Towers of Silence" is the 1971 novel by Paul Scott that continues his
Raj Quartet. It gets its title from the Parsi Towers of Silence where the bodies
of the dead are left to be picked clean by vultures. The novel is set in the
British Raj of 1940s India. It follows on from the storyline in the "The Day of
the Scorpion".

Miss Batchelor is a retired missionary schoolteacher who lives
with Mabel Layton at Rose Cottage. Barbie is a simple, down-to-earth woman, who
believes strongly in her god and in egalitarian Christianity and has clear ideas
about right and wrong. She is troubled that in all her years of missionary work,
she was not very successful in converting the children in her charge to
Christianity ("How many of them did I bring to God?" she asks herself.) Above
all, Barbie wants to be useful and to have a role in the society in which she
lives.

Barbie is haunted by the suicide of her friend and former colleague,
Edwina Crane, who in "The Jewel and the Crown" witnessed a brutal murder during
rioting "on the road to Dibrapur."

Barbie comes from a working-class
background, and this — as well as her taking up space in Rose Cottage — causes
Mildred Layton to resent her. Barbie's egalitarian attitudes, based on her
communal Christian beliefs, annoy and exasperate Mildred.

Barbie is a figure
of fun for the English elite in Pankot. They mock her and roll their eyes at
what they view as her hysterics and spread rumors that she is a lesbian.
However, Sarah Layton, especially, and her sister, Susan, have affection for
her.

She talks a lot and fondly remembers her father, a drinker from
Camberwell with a joy for life.

The author uses Barbie and other characters
to show how India changes Europeans until they no longer resemble those they
left behind. Barbie speaks fluent Hindi and is perhaps more Indian than
British.

The novel begins with the story of Barbie Batchelor, an old
missionary schoolteacher, who, after years of service to the church, decides to
take her pension and retire. She finds a place as a paying guest with Mabel
Layton, a member of the aristocracy of the English in India, at Rose Cottage in
Pankot. Barbie and Mabel become close. Late one night, Mabel tells Barbie that
she will only go to Ranpur when she's buried, which Barbie interprets to mean
that she wants to be buried in Ranpur, next to the grave of her late husband,
James Layton.

Barbie is proud of her working class background and her simple
Christianity, but she does her best to behave in a manner that makes upper-class
Pankot comfortable. Unfortunately, they will never accept her as one of their
own, treating her as a peculiar and unwanted intruder.

Barbie, wanting to
show her affection for Susan with a nice wedding-cum-21st birthday gift, buys a
set of silver Apostle spoons and gives them to Sarah to pass on. Mabel, while
going through some old clothes, comes upon a piece of cloth that remained from a
christening gown. The fabric is embedded with woven butterflies, symbolically
imprisoned in the material. She gives the piece to Barbie, who is quite taken
with its fragility.

In order to make up for having the wedding out of town,
Mildred throws a buffet luncheon at the Pankot Rifles officers' mess for Pankot
society. Mabel and Barbie go together, but are efficiently separated from each
other under Mildred's instructions. Barbie is puzzled that her gift of spoons is
not displayed with the other wedding gifts.

Mabel Layton has a stroke and
dies. Worried about the state of Mabel's soul, Barbie worms her way into the
morgue at the hospital and thinks she sees the anguish of eternal torment on the
face of her dead friend. She is then shocked to learn that Mabel will be buried
in Pankot and not in Ranpur, as she had wished. She barges in on Mildred to
plead for her friend's last wish, but Mildred rebukes her harshly for
interfering and offers a vicious evaluation of her character. Mildred gives
Barbie until the end of the month to vacate Rose Cottage.

Barbie tries hard
to get back into the missionary service, but finds a position difficult to
secure. She learns through Sarah that Mabel has left her an annuity in her will.
Barbie is embarrassed by the gesture and predicts that Mildred will cause
trouble over it.

Mildred blames Barbie for planting the idea [of infanticide]
in Susan's mind and returns the Apostle spoons through Clarissa. Barbie, deeply
hurt by the insult, sends notes to Colonel Trehearne and Captain Coley saying
that she intends to make a gift of silver to the 1st Pankot Rifles. She then
sets off in search of Coley to deliver the goods. Arriving at Coley's bungalow
in a rainstorm, Barbie gets no answer at the door. Finding it unlocked, she goes
in to leave the gift inside. But hearing an odd sound, she investigates and
comes upon the sight of Coley and Mildred Layton rutting furiously.

Undetected
by the lovers, she flees from the bungalow, but is caught in the rainstorm and
falls seriously ill, coming down with bronchopneumonia.

Barbie, recovering
from pneumonia but unable to speak above a whisper, finally donates the spoons
to the regiment. She gets a letter from Calcutta, offering her a position as a
teacher in Dibrapur, the site of Edwina Crane's horror.

Captain Coley informs
Barbie that a trunk full of her things has been found stored in a shed at Rose
Cottage and it had better be removed before Mildred finds out. Knowing that she
will soon be leaving the Peplows and will have enough space of her own, she goes
up to the vacant cottage to retrieve her trunk. There she encounters Ronald
Merrick, who is in town for treatment at the local military hospital and has
come in search of the Laytons; however, no one is currently in residence. Barbie
is excited to finally meet Merrick and asks him about Mayapore. She opens her
trunk and presents him with her copy of the painting, "The Jewel in the Crown".
Merrick recognizes it as one he saw among Edwina Crane's things and accepts it
gratefully.

Barbie has the tonga-wallah load the large trunk onto the tonga
she is travelling in. Merrick worries that the load is too heavy, especially on
such a steep road down from Rose Cottage. Barbie sets off anyway as it begins to
rain.

The dirt road becomes slick and the tonga-wallah loses control, dumping
Barbie and the trunk in a ditch. Barbie is physically and mentally injured in
the accident and ends up at a sanitarium in Ranpur. Her view is of the Parsees'
towers of silence of the title. Sarah visits her, but she cannot seem to get
through. Barbie dies just as the atomic bomb is exploded over Hiroshima in
August 1945.

You can find 'The Jewel In The Crown' in about a dozen segments on
YouTube....

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

In the comic books, Green Arrow operated out of Star City. But in the new
'Arrow' series from The CW, Oliver Queen lives in Starling City.

It could be that it was originally called Star City, but the city decided
to rename itself after a major benefactor, Henry Starling......

From Memory Alpha, a 'Star Trek' wiki:

Henry Starling was a Human industrialist who was largely responsible for
the computer age of the late 20th century. Unknown to anyone at the time,
Starling's innovations were based on his primitive understanding of the
technology found aboard the 29th century timeship Aeon, which he appropriated
after discovering the crashed vessel in 1967.

(Henry Starling appeared in two episodes of 'Voyager': "Future's End" and
"Future's End Part II".)

Because of the innovations he introduced (rather than invented), Starling
became a man of wealth and power throughout the world. And he won many
philanthropic awards over the years. As part of his philanthropy, he may have
contributed millions of dollars towards the revitalization of Star City (even
though he lived in Los Angeles) and in thanks the city changed its name to honor
him.

I don't think the truth about Starling ever surfaced in the present day of
Toobworld, and his death was probably covered up by temporal agents from the
Future. So that's why Starling City would still bear his name more than fifteen
years after he was killed.

This is all speculation of course. But it works for the Toobworld
Dynamic.....

Before the World Trade Center towers collapsed in 2001, Vincent Keller (the
title character in The CW's 'Beauty And The Beast' - and I ain't talking
Beauty!) worked as an emergency services doctor at St. Benjamin's Hospital in
New York City.

This is Toobworld we're talkin' heah, in case you were confused.

So far, 'Beauty And The Beast' is the only show I can find which has used
'St. Benjamin' as the name for a fictional hospital. I would have preferred
something that could provide at least one link to another series. Best of all
might have been Manhattan General which has several links, including one to a
movie which I believe should be absorbed into the Toobworld Dynamic - "The
Velvet Touch".

Manhattan General was the hospital where a possible Toobworld relative
worked - 'Kay O'Brien, MD' (which was "referenced" in an episode of 'St.
Elsewhere'). Patricia Kalember and Brian Benben starred in that show, which was
also name-checked in my Toobworld novel (a project always under
revision......)

Ever since I discovered that my cable company is finally carrying ME-TV
(Thanks, Mayr!), my DVR is slowly filling up with all the other shows I haven't
been watching because I'm too busy getting my 'Perry Mason' fix twice a
day!

DELLA STREET

AS SEEN IN:

'Perry Mason'

Several TV movies

CREATED BY:

Earle Stanley Gardner

PORTRAYED BY:

Barbara Hale

TV STATUS:

Recastaway (Original)

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:

Della Street was the fictional secretary of Perry Mason in the long-running
series of novels, films, and radio and television programs featuring the
fictional defense attorney created by Erle Stanley Gardner.

A character named
Della Street first appeared in Gardner's unpublished novel "Reasonable Doubt",
where she was a secretary, but not the secretary of the lawyer, Ed Stark.
Gardner described her this way: "Della Street ..... Secretary, twenty-seven,
quiet, fast as hell on her feet, had been places. Worked in a carnival or side
show, knows all the lines, hard-boiled exterior, quietly efficient, puzzled over
the lawyer, chestnut hair, trim figure, some lines on her face, a hint of
weariness at the corners of her eyes."

When Gardner submitted "Reasonable Doubt" to William Morrow, an editor
suggested that "Della Street is a better character than the secretary." Gardner
took this suggestion when he rewrote "Reasonable Doubt" as "The Case of the Velvet
Claws" and made Della Street Perry Mason's secretary. In the published novel,
the carnival or side show was jettisoned, and Street came from a more
respectable background.

On television, Della Street was played by Barbara
Hale, in the series and the made-for-TV movies. She was played by Sharon Acker
in the short-lived revival series, 'The New Adventures of Perry Mason' starring
Monte Markham as Mason. (Toobworld note:That TV series takes place in an
alternate TV dimension. However, in my Toobworld novel, that Perry Mason is a
shape-shifting alien of the "bent-pinkie" species seen in "The
Invaders".)

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

At 38 minutes into the pilot for 'Beauty And The Beast' on the CW (with
commercials), we saw a 2002 flashback to Afghanistan when Black Ops attempted to
kill off its experimental super-soldiers. As Victor Keller cowered to protect
himself from the strafing, we could hear the (in)famous Wilhelm Scream in the
distance.

Hopefully Team Toobworld remembers the Toobworld Central position on the
Wilhelm Scream - it's the sound made by the serial killer alien entity Redjac
when it leaves a body about to die.

Somebody on the ground in that kill-zone was hit by the bullets from
overhead and Redjac fled screaming from that host body.

It was probably Redjac who caused the most problems among the
super-soldiers, and it was probably to blame for most of them being killed off.
But the horrors of Afghanistan during a war would have been a perfect location
for Redjac to feed.

Where did Redjac go from there? Probably into some Black Ops soldier, most
likely one dispatched to look for survivors among the bodies and kill them.
From there, Redjac eventually made it back to the United States with that
soldier as host.

You could probably work your way through the alphabet of TV shows that have
had characters who have returned from tours of duty in Afghanistan - 'Army
Wives', 'Bones', 'Cougar Town', 'Damages', 'E-Ring', 'Flashpoint', 'The
Glades'..... But especially 'NCIS' - it feels like every other episodes is
about somebody who served over in Afghanistan. Bleep! You can even go
numerical with an episode of '7th Heaven'!

So somebody in any of those shows could have been the host for Redjac and
brought it back to America.......

Episodes were contributed by many notable writers, including Ira Levin,
Richard Maibaum and Rod Serling. The program also telecast one-hour musical
versions of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn. The United States Steel Hour telecast The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
on November 20, 1957 with a cast starring Jimmy Boyd, Earle Hyman, Basil
Rathbone, Jack Carson and Florence Henderson. Boyd had previously played
Huckleberry in the earlier telecast of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".

(About
the book)Further down the river, Jim and Huck rescue two cunning grifters,
who join Huck and Jim on the raft. The younger of the two swindlers, a man of
about thirty, introduces himself as a son of an English duke (the Duke of
Bridgewater) and his father's rightful successor. The older one, about seventy,
then trumps the Duke's claim by alleging that he is the Lost Dauphin, the son of
Louis XVI and rightful King of France. He continually mispronounces the duke's
title as "Bilgewater" in conversation.

The Duke and the King then join Jim
and Huck on the raft, committing a series of confidence schemes on the way
south. To allow for Jim's presence, they print fake bills for an escaped slave;
and later they paint him up entirely in blue and call him the "Sick Arab". On
one occasion they arrive in a town and advertise a three-night engagement of a
play which they call "The Royal Nonesuch". The play turns out to be only a
couple of minutes of hysterical cavorting, not worth anywhere near the 50 cents
the townsmen were charged to see it.

On the afternoon of the first
performance, a drunk called Boggs arrives in town and makes a nuisance of
himself by going around threatening a southern gentleman by the name of Colonel
Sherburn. Sherburn comes out and warns Boggs that he can continue threatening
him up until exactly one o'clock. At one o'clock, Boggs continues and Colonel
Sherburn kills him.

Somebody in the crowd, whom Sherburn later identifies as
Buck Harkness, cries out that Sherburn should be lynched. They all head up to
Colonel Sherburn's gate, where they are met by Sherburn, who is standing on his
porch carrying a loaded shotgun and his three legged dalmatian. He causes them
to back down, by making a defiant speech telling them about the essential
cowardice of "Southern justice". The only lynching to be done here, says
Sherburn, will be in the dark, by men wearing masks.

By the third night of
"The Royal Nonesuch", the townspeople are ready to take their revenge; but the
Duke and the King have already skipped town, and together with Huck and Jim,
they continue down the river. Once they are far enough away, the two grifters
test the next town, and decide to impersonate two brothers of Peter Wilks, a
recently deceased man of property.

Using an absurd English accent, the King
manages to convince nearly all the townspeople that he is one of the brothers, a
preacher just arrived from England, while the Duke pretends to be a deaf-mute to
match accounts of the other brother. One man in town is certain that they are a
fraud and confronts them on the matter, but the crowd refuses to support him.
Afterwards, the Duke, out of fear, suggests to the King that they should cut and
run. The King boldly states his intention to continue to liquidate Wilks'
estate, saying, "Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that
a big enough majority in any town?"

Huck likes Wilks' daughters, who treat
him with kindness and courtesy, so he tries to thwart the grifters' plans by
stealing back the inheritance money. When he is in danger of being discovered,
he has to hide it in Wilks' coffin, which is buried the next morning without
Huck knowing whether the money has been found or not. The arrival of two new men
who seem to be the real brothers throws everything into confusion when none of
their signatures match the one on record. (The deaf-mute brother, who is said to
do the correspondence, has his arm in a sling and cannot currently write.) The
townspeople devise a test, which requires digging up the coffin to check. When
the money is found in Wilks' coffin, the Duke and the King are able to escape in
the confusion. They manage to rejoin Huck and Jim on the raft to Huck's despair,
since he had thought he had escaped them.

Certain musical productions do belong in the main Toobworld, such as 'Cop
Rock' and 'Hull High', where Life was altered by the intervention of Mr. Sweet
the demon from 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'. But in this case, since there were
earlier productions and all of these characters are recastaways, it's best to
leave it in an alternate TV dimension where musical expression holds sway
(perhaps caused by a dimension-hopping Sweet.)

My main concern with the Toobworld Dynamic is how many TV shows I can
manage to keep in the same dimension. 'Sliders' may give me the luxury of
having plenty of TV dimensions in which I can stock those series which don't
quite fit into Earth Prime-Time, but I'd much rather have most of them sharing
the same world. Even though it would probably never happen, there's always the
possibility these shows might cross over.

Basically I think of Toobworld as my sandbox playground in which I play
with the action figures that belong to others.

So that's all I care about when it comes to a new TV series. It's not
germane to my interests whether the show is any good or not. (But I do
recognize its quality. I can tell when it goes from television to
smellovision!)

And that brings me to the new version of the classic 'Beauty And The Beast'
story on the CW.

From what I've seen so far, the reviews for 'Beauty And The Beast' have
been brutal. It debuted to decent ratings, but so did 'The Secret Circle' and
that faded away quickly. And those ratings could probably be due more to the
fact that its only competition was the Veep debate on all the other networks.
Viewers might take such reviews to heart and drop away from this show by next
week. Or it could be review-resistant and appeal to the crowd that watches 'The
Vampire Diaries'.

But that doesn't matter to me. All I care about is whether or not the
series can remain in Earth Prime-Time. And there were major concerns in this
case, since the same story was told in Toobworld a quarter century ago.

The basic premise remains the same - a beautiful young woman in the justice
system of New York is rescued by a "beast"-man. The names even remained the
same - she is Catherine Chandler and he is Vincent. (Although he now sports a
last name - Keller. Keller - Killer?)

But after that, the details diverge. This Catherine Chandler is an NYPD
detective while the late Catherine Chandler was an assistant district attorney.
The original Vincent was a true beast - leonine in his facial features and
covered with soft fur. But Vincent Keller is a victim of genetic
experimentation by the Army while he served in the military over in Afghanistan
in 2002. He became a super-soldier prone to violent rages that make him more Hulk-like, although he does have "cross-species" DNA now.

By not slavishly recreating the premise of the original, I think it could
be argued that both shows share the same TV dimension.

Both women being named Catherine Chandler is unfortunate, but not
insurmountable. It's a combination that works well together. And I can see any
new parents with the married name of "Chandler" giving "Catherine" serious
consideration for their newborn baby girls. (Baby boys, not so much.)

And even though both of them worked in the New York justice system, they
weren't in the same profession - not that it would have mattered. In Los
Angeles, Toobworld has at least two men in the police department named Lt.
Columbo!

With the two "beasts" named Vincent, I chalk it up to a big coincidence.
There have been incredibly huge coincidences in Toobworld over the years, let's
face it.

Should the show succumb early, we might even make a claim after the fact
that Detective Catherine Chandler is related to the deceased ADA Catherine
Chandler, and that in fact she was named after her. (If she's the same age as
the actress who plays her - the Toobworld standard - then Catherine was born in
1982. So the timeline works out for such a supposition.)

Hopefully the bare bones of the original show's premise is all that we'll
see cribbed for the new series. Otherwise we'll run into trouble if they start
bringing in recastaways for characters like Mouse and Paracelsus.

Otherwise, 'Beauty And The Beast' Mach Two fits in well with Earth
Prime-Time. Unless of course they choose to feature a different President of
the United States, or - closer to home - a different Mayor of New York
City.

(Like 'CSI: NY', 'Rescue Me', and 'Touch' before it, the deaths of loved
ones in the attack on the World Trade Center factor into the background for
Vincent - he lost two brothers in the collapse, which prompted him to enlist.
So existence of that tragic event means 'Beauty And The Beast' can stay in the
main Toobworld. Otherwise I'd have tossed it into the "Over There" dimension of
'Fringe'.......)

Monday, October 15, 2012

Earlier this year, the TV Crossover Hall of Fame began a new policy of
inducting members of the League of Themselves - if they qualified - as soon as
possible after learning of their deaths. Being the only Caretaker here at
Toobworld Central, I can't rely upon my memory anymore to keep them in mind for
the usual month for people who appeared as themselves in Toobworld
(March).

A few days ago Gary Collins passed away at the age of 74.....

From the L.A. Times:

Gary Collins, 74, an actor who was the host of the syndicated TV show "Hour
Magazine" and a former master of ceremonies for the Miss America Pageant, died
early Saturday in Biloxi, Miss. Collins died of natural causes soon after
arriving at Biloxi Regional Medical Center, Harrison County Coroner Gary
Hargrove told the Associated Press.

After his military service ended he
landed a starring role in the 1965 sitcom "The Wackiest Ship in the Army" and
followed with regular roles in the TV series "Iron Horse," "The Sixth Sense" and
"Born Free." He also had a string of guest star appearances in popular
prime-time programs.

It was his hosting duties on 'Hour Magazine' and the Miss America Pageant
which gave Gary Collins enough appearances on other shows as his own
televersion. And because one of those shows incorporated 'Hour Magazine' into
the plot, then that series has more "oomph" in the mosaic of the TV
Universe.

Here's a rundown of those other shows:

'Gimme A Break' - "Second Chance Parts 1 & 2"

Nell appeared on 'Hour Magazine' to sing a song written by an ex-con.

'Friends' - "The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS"

Gary Collins hosted a pledge break telethon on New York's Channel 13.

'Dharma & Greg' - "I Did It For You, Kitty"

Collins hosted a beauty pageant for mature women in San Francisco.

'Dead Like Me' - "Reapercussions"

Gary and his wife, former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley, can be seen in an
infomercial for a belly reducing product, which ends up killing
people......

And like I said, his hosting duties on 'Hour Magazine' and the 'Miss
America Pageant' should also be included since they've both been incorporated
into other shows over the years, even if only in passing references.

Here are some clips of Gary Collins as his own televersion.....

(Even though it's rife with "Zonks", I chose that particular clip from 'Hour Magazine' for my cousin's wife (cousin-in-law?) Denise Hansen. She's an avid fan of 'Days Of Our Lives'. That other Zonk-fest with Alan Young and Connie Hines? That was for me!)

So it may not be much, but entry into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame is my
small way of honoring an actor I always enjoyed. (I was a big fan of 'The
Wackiest Ship In The Army' and 'The Sixth Sense' when I was younger.)

One of the many rules of thumb for the Toobworld concept is that whoever
first plays a particular role becomes the official "televersion" for the main
Toobworld (Earth Prime-Time). Any recastaways that come along later in a remake* would be
relegated to another TV dimension - unless a splainin can be provided for the
recastaway to be the same character as the original**.

EXAMPLES:

GEORGE SHUMWAY - 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'

Played by Phil Bruns & Tab Hunter

Splainin - Plastic Surgery

SHERIFF'S DEPUTY ANDY - 'Eureka'

Played by Ty Olsson & Kavan Smith

Splainin - Rebuilt Android

DARRIN STEPHENS - 'Bewitched'

Played by Dick York & Dick Sargent

Splainin - Magic Spell

(This is also the splainin for Darrin's neighbor Gladys Kravitz and Major Tony Nelson of 'I Dream Of Jeannie')

And then there's always the Time Lords of 'Doctor Who'.....

Splainin - Regeneration

For the last couple of seasons of 'Smallville', Justin Hartley played
Oliver Queen AKA the super-heroic archer Green Arrow. But even though he was
the original for that role, he was in a series where the main character -
Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman - was a recastaway. For Toobworld, George Reeves in
'The Adventures Of Superman' was the official Man of Steel... even if he did die
back in the early 1960's due to Kryptonite poisoning.

So now we have a TV series dedicated to this hero, 'Arrow'. And because
it's unencumbered by connections to 'Smallville' (which is in the 'West Wing' TV
dimension, by the way), we accept Stephen Amell as the official Green
Arrow/Oliver Queen of Earth Prime-Time.

BCnU!

PS:

* This does not include recastaways within the same original series.

** Even rarer are the recastaways who can share the same TV dimension as the originals, but we do have one this season. More on that in an upcoming post.....

On the eve of the second Presidential debate, my mind latched on to this
literary TV character......

ROMNEY PRINGLE

AS SEEN IN:'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes'("The
Assyrian Rejuvenator")CREATED BY:R. Austin FreemanPORTRAYED
BY:Donald SindenFrom Coachwhip Publications:To all appearances
Romney Pringle is a literary agent down on his luck, but in truth he is a con
man with extraordinary talents, always looking for a way to add to his coffers.
Not without a heart, he will help out an unfortunate stranger, but he can't
resist helping himself along the way.Originally published from 1902-1903,
all twelve stories are included in this collection. It is a terrific addition to
the criminal rogue bookshelf. (Romney Pringle was even included in Ellery
Queen's "Quorum" of important and influential mystery and crime
stories.)

From Bob Schneider:The Age of the Gentleman Crook is long gone
and Romney Pringle, the ostensible literary agent of turn of the century London,
was certainly not the most prominent of the lot. His predecessors (Colonel Clay
and Raffles) and his antecedents (Arsene Lupin and Simon Templar) are, with the
possible exception of Clay, more well known.Pringle lives by his wits and
his keen observational powers. He is a consummate student of human nature and
when he observes unusual or curious behavior he doggedly pursues those
exhibiting it until he reaches his goal, which is self-enrichment. Although he
usually ends up extracting treasure from a fellow criminal, occasionally an
innocent is victimized. Pringle is no brute and never resorts to violence. A
partial listing of his crimes is as follows: Patent medicine fraud, mail fraud,
forgery, stock market manipulation, robbery, burglary, impersonation and treason
(or something close to it). Pringle enjoys fine art, bicycling, boating and
fishing. He is a chemist, gemologist and master of disguises. He is a true
loner—no fawning Boswell is present to record his adventures. From the source ("The Kimberley Fugitive"):

Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"